Blessed Idiocy
by Zayz
Summary: A pointless little drabble in which House battles with the blessed idiocy of the clinic patients he tries so hard to avoid. Features blue people, hair re-growth, and a man's "oozing" breasts. You know you're curious... R&R!


A/N: I was in the mood to write a bit of House, so I began to do a bit of searching, only to receive _very _interesting results. It's pretty useless, but it was fun to write.

Takes place pre-Season 5, in case you're wondering. My mind still hasn't wrapped itself fully around that finale…

I hope you guys like this and please review!

Cheers.  
Xx

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**Blessed Idiocy  
By: Zayz**

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"House!"

The diagnostician in question, upon hearing his name in that shrill, unmistakable tone, made a clumsy leap to hide behind an ER curtain.

"House!"

He remained extremely still, like rabbits or small children do when they're caught, and remained exactly where he was, ignoring the complaining twinge of pain in his leg.

"_House_, you are no longer fourteen and therefore should be beyond these childish chases!" Lisa Cuddy stomped towards the curtain, heels clacking quite menacingly, her hands planted on her hips.

As she approached, House put on a deep, drawly tone and said, "House? There is no House here. I am Oz the Great!"

Cuddy, her demeanor unfazed, snatched the curtain back and revealed House standing there, leaning on his cane, a blasé expression on his face. He did a mock double-take as he took in the sight of his boss, glaring irately in his direction.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – I'm still Oz the Great," House informed her.

"Well, _Oz the Great_, you still have clinic duty to do," Cuddy announced. "I've had to track you down for a half hour today and now that I've got you trapped, you aren't going anywhere but the clinic."

"Can't," House stated, his blue eyes wide and would-be-sorry. "I'm exhausted. I've been avoiding my boss for a half hour with a bum leg – I think I need to lie down."

Cuddy pursed her lips. "You can rest your bum leg on a stool in Exam Room 2 while the nurses send you patients," she said. "Or you can help out here in the ER, since you seem to be so keen on their curtains."

"Ha! You're funny," said House. "But I do have another appointment to keep today – hence hiding in the ER – so I guess I'll have to keep that. Wouldn't want to leave it late; weren't you the one who always told me I had commitment issues?" He paused, considering. "Or was that Wilson? I always forget who pins me with what insecurity."

"Cancel the hooker and go to the clinic," Cuddy ordered sternly.

"Nope, no hooker right now," House said pleasantly. "That's for later. Right now, I have an appointment with Anna, Brock, and Marie. Anna is pregnant with what is supposed to be Marie's twin sons and Brock has to break it to them at two thirty."

Cuddy sighed, clearly annoyed. "It's twelve," she said. "You have enough time to do the two clinic hours you owe me for now. We'll work out a schedule for the rest of the eight hundred and sixty-four hours you owe me later."

House rolled his eyes. "Can I at least tell my ducklings that they have to hold off on killing the patient for a few hours so I can watch?"

"No," said Cuddy. "I'm sure they'll get the hint when you don't show up." She wrinkled her nose at him. "I take my earlier remark back – I think you _are_ still fourteen years old. Or less."

"So what does that make you, my first girlfriend?" House inquired.

She chose not to answer this, instead rolling her eyes and hauling House by the wrist in the direction of the clinic. He did not take kindly to this treatment.

"Hey, watch those turns, I'm crippled!" House complained. "And what kind of fourteen-year-old gets dragged around halls in your shackles? I didn't get to do that until I was eighteen and had my own place."

"If you insist on acting like a child, I am going to treat you like one," Cuddy clarified through gritted teeth, choosing to ignore the rest of his comment. The two arrived at the doors of the clinic, where she finally let him go and crossed her arms.

"We have a lot of patients to get through, so the nursing staff will make sure you are working for the entirety of your shift," said Cuddy.

"Don't worry, Mom, I'll play nice," he said. "See you after play group!"

Cuddy rolled her eyes a final time and clacked her heels back down the hall she had just come from, perhaps to terrorize someone else into doing her bidding. House watched her go for a couple of seconds to make sure she was gone before resignedly walking into the clinic, where he was, as Cuddy predicted, hailed by a harassed-looking nurse with a stack of folders.

"Here!" she said, thrusting one into House's arms. "Exam Room 2 – hurry!"

"Oh hey, Barbara, nice to see you too," said House cheerily. "My day is going great, how sweet of you to ask. You want to do lunch in a few?"

Regrettably, the greeting was wasted, because Barbara was off to the other end of the clinic to give another doctor a folder. House, disgruntled and bored to tears already, glanced casually at the first page of the file and pushed open the door to Exam Room 2.

Inside, a man was sitting in a chair by the window. He appeared to be about mid-fifties with a mostly bald head decorated with a few sparse wisps of coffee-brown hair. His skin was wrinkled and loose and vaguely gray, like underwear that had been washed too many times, and a healthy beer belly protruded out from his trousers, covering most of his belt.

The moment he saw House, the man bounced up from his chair with surprising speed and came forward. His eyebrows gave him a perpetually anxious look and his current state of anxiety didn't really help.

"Oh, doctor, finally!" the man cried. "I desperately need somethin' – it's getting to be too much!"

"Mid-life crisis already?" House asked. "Goodness, you don't seem to be more than twenty-five."

The man, ignoring House, said, "Look, my life is turnin' upside down. For the past few weeks, when I try to have sex with my wife, I can't seem to get it up right—"

"_That's _the big emergency? You can't have sex with your wife?" House's eyebrows rose dangerously high. "The real emergency is why your wife _would _have sex with you…"

"No, no, that's not all of it!" the man all but hollered. Clearly, sarcasm went right over his shiny little head. "I get bad rashes and pains in places you shouldn't be gettin' either of them in, I'm itchy, and…"

The man leaned in confidentially to whisper, "My breasts are oozing somethin' clear and sticky."

House could only stare at the man. For once in his life, he couldn't say anything sardonic to this – there were so many options that he was lost for words.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," said the man. "I'm a guy, I shouldn't be havin' oozy breasts, but it's true! It happened yesterday and I knew I had to come and see someone about it. Can you give me somethin'?"

House took in the sight of the poor man in front of him – everything, from his brown shoes to his less-than-model-esque physique to his bald head – and suddenly, everything made sense. With a small sigh, he let his face fall into the palm of his hand, wondering for the millionth time in his life why doctors were forced to interact with their patients.

"Do you dig the whole hair re-growth thing, by any chance?" asked House.

The man appeared astonished. "Why, yes, I am," he said. "I'm on this great drug my doctor gave me that's startin' to work, actually…"

"Propecia?" guessed House.

The man appeared even more astonished. "Why, _yes_," he said. "How did you—"

"Propecia contains a synthetic anti-androgen called finasteride," House explained gruffly, not bothering to listen to the rest of the question. "That's what makes it work. Maybe it helps you with your Jimi Hendrix locks, but in some rare cases, it causes gynecomastia – or, the lactating boobs."

The man's eyes widened in horror. "So…you're sayin' my symptoms are caused by my Propecia?"

"Yup," said House. "Now you get to make that fun choice between having hair or the gynecomastia."

"But…my hair won't grow unless I take Propecia," the main said uncertainly.

"That's correct," said House. "And that's why you have to make your choice."

"So—"

"But, fortunately for me, I am a doctor and not your high school counselor, so I don't have to help you with or make this decision for you," House proclaimed. "Farewell, lactating bald guy in Exam Room 2 – I have some other idiot to deal with now."

With a dramatic salute, House bolted out of the exam room as fast as his leg would let him go, leaving the man inside speechless, groping in his pocket for his pill bottle. House took the folder to the nurse at the front desk and dropped it on top of her pile, saying, "All done."

"Great – there's another patient in Exam Room 3," said the nurse. "Could you take care of that?"

House groaned. "My pleasure," he snapped, grudgingly limping out to Exam Room 3, armed with another folder.

However, upon entering the room, he beheld a highly traumatized young woman with skin colored a royal blue. House blinked several times as his brain committed her image to permanent, long-term memory.

"My boyfriend gave me a medicine for my dermatitis and my skin turned blue!" the woman wailed. "What am I supposed to do?!"

House rolled his eyes, releasing yet another heavy sigh into the air. He kicked the door shut behind him and plopped down on a stool, observing the rather unusual phenomenon.

Oh, the clinic patients. Before shouting at the woman to please shut up, House vaguely wondered if Cuddy set him up for this on purpose; because it would make a very sick kind of sense if she did.

Only two hours and thirty-two minutes before he was out here and could slack off in peace.

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A/N: There actually was a story about this guy who took this silver compound to get rid of his dermatitis – a friend said it might work – and his skin turned blue. That's where I got the idea.

And yes, Propecia can actually do that to you if you're part of the unlucky 1.4 percent, so make sure that if you're thinking about hair re-growth that you keep in touch with your doctor.

So, I hope you enjoyed this useless bit of fun that I concocted after a hard day of finals today. Please remember to review on your way out!


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